Hey chaps,

With many thanks to Rick Rawlins for forcing me into skinning, I thought this thread would be a good idea in order to show off your custom skins. Here's mine for my current 1917 8 RNAS campaign.



I've shared mine, now let's see yours!

Great idea!!
We have some real artists here and I look forward to seeing them - hopefully with download links if the artist feels so inclined.
Unfortunately my skills are quite weak!

Although technically it is unofficial skins,thread, but good idea Slick

I like the green job great.

"The official..." sounded like an announcemnt by OBD themselves to me - maybe you could
edit the title to something like "WOFF Users' Homemade Skins Thread" or so?

Your work is very suitable for the Tripe and the British brown tone, Slick!
You may find it a nice hobby to make your own skins, and should you ever fly German scouts,
you could really go into the full paintjobs.
My early skins were often much simpler, but by now I have found out how this or that colour
would appear ingame - experience grows with the working time so to say.

Here is my momentary Albatros D.V, which I will offer for download later, if the pilot should fall.
(Well, he will fall most definitely, sooner or later - that's another experience...)
This must be one of the "loudest" paintjobs I have ever done; the yellow is quite dominant.
I picked the colours from the parade-uniform of the 2. Garde-Ulanenregiment, from where
my pilot came to the Luftstreitkräfte.

Boy that's a beauty Olham.
Wish I had that skin for all the Alb models.
Your on obviously a painting pro!

Polish pilot in German service painted on his machine Polish national emblem - white eagle on the red board (I think that such manifestation of Polish national sentiments wouldn't be allowed in Kaiser's avaition in real life)

Edited the topic. I am not related to OBD in any way, nor do they condone or support anything that might dribble out of my mouth.

Lovely Albatros skin, Olham. My skinning skills are very elementary now. Maybe some day I'll be able to create a beauty like what you've done!

LMAO at the new title

I thought it was official yesterday?!

Manfas, you may be right. Not because it is a Polish sign, but because it is an official
national insignia - which any air force from another country would not have on their planes.
Or maybe, if a pilot would paint it much smaller...
But here you have all the freedom - and I like it!


That is a much better title now, Slick - and so much funnier!


Thank you, SW - yes, you will get on and on finding out the tricks how to get this and that
result even better - if your breath is long enough. Me, I was hooked from the beginning (October 2008).

Olham, still Fxxxng, oeps sorry, jealous about your screenshots, do you use a injector like SweetFX???

This is a good time for skinning since the weather is too bad for flying in the DiD campaign!

Very nice skins here, so far!

Nope - it's all WOFF out of the latest EXPANSION box, which includes AnKor's light & shader mod,
and I think also ArisFuser's cloud mod.

Moreover there wasn't independent Polish state during WWI and Prussia (and then German Empire) occupied some parts of former Polish Kingdom so Polish white eagle on German plane could be interpreted as disobedience against authorities.
On the other side it is interesting to see red-white checkboard on some German planes (I saw Fokker D VII with such insignia)- the marking which was adopted in 1918 by young independent Polish Air Force as a national marking.

This aint my work...but I may dabble into it...one day.

Olham made this for me and its my DID skin at the mo...and he did it within a few hours of my request for help.

First phase for my new Jasta 5 skin,...just the weathering added, later, colours and emblems will be added on top of it:)

Manfas, I am glad that Poland is back on the maps - the Polish people were never gone anyway.

Lederhosen, I must correct you a bit:
my job on that skin only went so quick, because it was the smallest part;
the most of it was already there; it was done by Mark "Polovski" Rogers.

ok ok...but you did a bit.

Here is my "When I feel cocky enough to fly and American Campaign skin". It's because I watched to much TV when I was a kid, and was a Richard Boone fan.






Beard

Fantastic plane skin Burning_Beard! Very well done. Doesn't hurt that I love playing Paladins in WoW either. lol

What programs do you use, ArisFuser? The weathering effects are very impressive! I wonder if Gimp has anything like weathering tools?

That's just stunning, Beard. Did you put the roundels on after the checkered pattern as a new layer? I still can't quite figure out if you lift the roundels off, and them paste them back on...or maybe just put new roundels on after the pattern.

Please tell me that you did all that in Gimp!

Slick, when I do repaints I usually do a whole new template, that way I can build up the layers the way I want them. How some ever, you could just paint new roundels over any new surface you want to use if you have a good drawing program. I use Corel Draw, but Gimp also does vector graphics. Most, if not all of my weathering is done in a raster program (like Photo Shop) the trick comes when you copy your vector files to raster or visa versa, you need to watch your alignment very closely. You can apply transparency to the different layers that you stack on for weathering, dirt, grime, etc.. Also I don't put shadows on my skins, I figure the program itself will do that better than I can with the exception of what the wing will look like from the bottom, in this case the you can see a very faint impression of the top of the wing showing through.

Thanks for the comments guys,
Beard

I like it Smosh! That one is great.

Beard

Love that spider skin, Smosh !

Thanks guys. I've always liked to keep my "ace" aircraft understated rather than OTT.

Slick, just to add on to what Beard said, GIMP has a circle selection tool which you can use to cut out the rondels to paste on another layer so you can bring them back later, or you can just paint over everything and cut down to the rondels using that tool...

Well all this "raster" and "vector" talk has confirmed that serious skinning for me will not happen till I am retired!

BBeard, I see the signwrite behind your paintjob - great crate for attracting the gunslingers!

Smosh, that is a very believeable German skin there - well done!

LOL Olham, still pushing a brush after all these years

Beard

Sonja Hennie's tutu! You don't say. I will have to take a look at that, Rick. I imagine that it would be easier to cut the roundels out first, then paste them back on later. Otherwise, it might be difficult to know where they are in order to cut through the other layer(s).

Work in progress for my Jasta 5 Albatros Dv:

Looking great, and very believeable, Aris! Do the signs mean anything special?

The signs are the personal symbols of a JG1 pilot IIRC(can´t remember the name) in ww2...but I like them!

Nice skin Aris.

I like that Aris

Reduce the opacity of layers above to find stuff below... You can then cut out the rondels (or whatever) and bring it back up!

.

Some gorgeous custom paints here Gents. Lots of time and attention involved in putting one of these together, (as I am personally and painfully aware). ArisFuser, the weathering on your kite is really outstanding.

.

I was late to the party on this one. Beautiful work! Those are some fantastic skins folks.

Aris;

As Lou has said, excellent weathering and design as well. Just what does the text say under the cockpit? I can't make it out.

Best Regards

I am one dimension when skinning, especially British planes. Here is my "Cowboy" Tripe to go along with my Pup and Camel. Just painted the nose with a bit of weathering.

Great SKins Guys.

ok ... I know I said I would post some progress on my 'angry sparrows' dh2 skins here



I did five 'variants' as I couldn't make up my mind! but am about to go to bed here so will have to post pics of them tomorrow - I spent the last couple of days having fun with some skinning practise on some foes for the sparrows

following are some shots of the eindecker III and IVs (I've still got to do some Is and IIs)

again - new to all of this so learning as I go, but do have some experience with photoshop and illustrator which is helping

first a few eIIIs

inspired by some great skins done by another chap for Third Wire's First Eagles 2 ... Austro Hungarian Aviatik Bergs ... I just loved there very colorful hexagonal patterns .. and so wanted to see if I could come up with my own version ficticiously on the eindeckers.

not a lot of modding on the eIII skin = replaced the center fuselage iron cross with a 'number band', some fun coloring and trying to create a method for subtle but 'clean' hexagonal patterning too

the default or 'donor' eIII skin was I believe Jasta 1 in the green - here it is with a bit of work to my liking



I wanted to keep within a believable german palette (at least for my imaginary tases) so I added a natural earth tone brown variant and a nice pale blue one too ... might adjust the brown one's cowl tone a bit yet ...





now I have a few colorful eIIIs to chase with the sparrows - the way the Woff sun glints of the patterns is wonderful to watch

I called them 'dragons' as I am sure the scourge was quite terrifying in the skies when it started

next some meaner 'big brother; eIVs ... I wanted these to be a bit more bold but started with a very subtle pattern which I quite like over the default 'linen' skin



then to make it look even meaner I decided to darken the cowl - an interesting exercise as I found out sometimes the texture mapping on the template is at different scales and orientations and even 'shared' or used on more than one part of the plane (are there any diagram templates for these planes .. figuring out what maps what is a bit of a trial and error approach it seems for some bits!?!)

when darkening the cowl I thought the standard foot step plates on wing roots was too bright for my liking so I did up another version of that and blended it up to the cowl a bit too

here is the 'linen' one, now with a darkened engine cowl



and then inspired by some wonderful blue / purple german patterns and gotha skins I had seen ...



and I needed a 'red dragon' too



so there you go, now some 'hi impact' colored eIV dragons for the sparrows to hunt .. or be hunted by!!



next post the dh2s fight back

cheers, Ron

Beard where is the Knight that was on the holster and his business card. Some very nice skins gentlemen I am envious of the skill set that you people seem to have.
Happy Hunting in the Skies over Fladers Fields
John

The knight on the side of the plane is from the business card,

Beard

I did not see it the first time. I went back for another look and there it was. Very nice skin Paladin would have been proud.
Happy Hunting in the Skies over Flanders Fields.
John

Thank You, Richard Boone was such a ham actor he deserved a plane

Beard